ver 1.19 Starbase Economics

This is a hard way to stop cultural bombing.
And i don't like it either.

didnt think about party palaces. i like playing large+ maps and dont like being penalized for it

I love it because it's a heck of a challenge. Dang that first game almost bit my rear end off! I had no idea how "logistics" was going to impact the game, but I tamed that thar beast in the end.

Just my opinion! Don't flame! Don't flame! AAAAAAAAAAAA!!! (Kit runs away screaming like a little girl)

Just finished my first 1.19 game using starbases to have a cultural win. No starships, except the freighter and constuctors. I had no problem, but I was playing at challeging difficulty on a small map. Don't forget to decommission your old starbases that you don't need to use anymore. And sell the fliped planet's starships.

And I'm just thrilled with "del" button in the save games interface!

I'm still in my first 1.19 game and it happened twice - AI declares war on me and I got no warning until first attack. There used to be a pop-up warning - what happened? :notsure:

Great. Now they declare war in the same way you do...

Bill

~SDC~

I had absolutely no problem with the starbase fee! If you were used to build a base in every sector you got a planet in, well, that's your problem...

Note that you dont have to pay the 10 bc support anymore.

@Stardock: When I buy SBs from another civ, I shall have to pay the additional fee aswell. I saved 4k bc that way.

The only problemn I have with the fee is that it's so artificial. I liked the idea of starbase maintenance. Maybe tweak the numbers, like 200 bc to plant a base initially (a one time charge), 10 bc for infrastructure maintenance, plus 10 bc for every module. Maybe starbases located next to YOUR populated stars get hit for only 5 bc per module because you can get some goods and services locally - don't have to import stuff - but I don't know how easily this can be integrated into the existing programming. That way you would have to choose wisely which modules should go on which starbase without being artificially penalized for running a huge/giganctic galaxy.

Bill

~SDC~

1 cr per mod is better

It would be cheaper to park 4 BattleShips on a SB than build up the def mods.

Hmm, was this change done purely to make culture bombing harder?

One consequence that I think the devs may have missed is that this makes corner starts almost unplayable.

If I am playing a less than crippling game then I don't mind a corner start. I find that it requires a new set of tactics, concentrating on trade, starbases , and poaching resources whenever possible.

On the larger map sizes, you need to build at least 3 or 4 starbases just for range extenders, even with the range techs.

Money for starbases isn't a bad idea, but it needs tweaking. Maybe change the numbers based on map size, maybe just a slightly higher limit in general. Or possibly have resource bases not count to the logistics rules the same way they don't count for the mimimum distance rule.

One trick someone hasn't mentioned yet: Turn your no-longer-needed starbases into terror stars, and move them around. At a certain point, the 5000 BC terror star fee is cheaper than building a new starbase. Those resouce starbases in unpopulated sectors can also be moved.

what is the most cr anyone has paid for a starbase? 2,000 was the most i paid last game, and some resources did not get mined.

I was paying about 6000 per starbase by the end of my game, a culture bomb special... Fortunately, I was pretty rich.

~SDC~

Hrm. I also don't like this new scaling price scheme. It IS very artificial. Sure, cultural wins are too easy, but the whole point of starbases is that they can support multiple types of wins! Instead, lets have a good old maintenance fee for starbases. With culture, just make influence 50% as effective at flipping stars. All will be well then.

Question: Would it be fairly straightforward to make this fix as a mod? I havn't yet looked into the files...

Fix this artificial starbase price scheme! It's silly.

-Smack

I'm not thrilled with the change in starbase costs either . My first thought would be to keep things as they are for non-resource starbases but to either remove or drastically reduce the cost when the base is build on a resource.

Starbases no longer have a Maint. cost btw.

So before, let's say you had 20 starbases. They were costing you $200 per turn. Every turn. Play the game for say 100 turns like this and you're talking $20,000 in maint.

So it's really not that much more now. And it's only per starbase. So it gives more incentive for people to buidl UP their starbases rather than simply cranking out tons of little starbases.

Obviously the people who want to just crank out 80+ starbaes with just 3 cultural addons on it don't like it.

But that was one reason this was done. It was way way too easy to abuse starbases. They were meant to be built up.

But why build up if you can just put 10 starbases in your sector that have a +1 defesen to your ships or a +25% to your culture? It completely screws up the game mechanics.

Now, peopel will play the game as it was intended - each star base is precious.

It was Deep Space 9 after all, not Deep Space 465.

Maybe one reason that many don't like the new system is that it isn't finished?

My logistics ability always shows zero so far playing with 1.19. Will there be some techs or race picks in 1.20 to raise the logistics ability in order to reduce the cost? How about a +1 logistics on the info net social project -- it would make one of the most worthless social projects have an actual use, and it makes sense from the story side too.

(edit)
Frogboy - I do agree btw that _something_ needed to be done to prevent the worst of starbase abuse. Your example of 10 bases with +1 defence is perfect. Those mods were supposed to be rare: that's why there is only one of them!
[Message Edited]

It might have been easy to abuse starbases, but I always have lots and lots of them - and I never build purely cultural starbases, only extenders range extenders (and I prefer to do this with new systems where I can).

The reason is that I always play in gigantic galaxies, and I like to have a starbase in every sector where I have a colony. Because I colonise PQ12-13 colonies, more often than not, I will have more than one star system or colony per sector, making each starbase more valuable. I will usually have, by about mid-game, twenty or even more starbases, just to support my own colonies. The only starbases out of populated sectors I have are resource bases and range extenders (even not many of those as I tend to disband them once they've served their purpose).

I haven't tested 1.19 yet, but judging by the level of my economy in the current games I'm playing, my economy could probably withstand this level of starbase production, but I couldn't build too many more bases than this - BUT I can generally only do this because all my planets get upgraded to high PQs.

I'll have a go after I finish my current game and see how it goes.

It might have been Deep Space 9, but it was Starbase 452

I'm not against changing the way starbase costs are handled. This new way feels way too artificial and makes it not worthwhile playing with larger galaxies. Why not make each module have an exponential effect on starbase maintenance (it takes twice as much expenses to maintain two modules as one, but four times as much to maintain 3 modules, etc.)? Make each starbase be 1000 bc to plant, if you want - starbase construction should be a major undertaking. Maybe starbases in sectors with your star system(s) get a halving of its expenses due to the fact it can take advantage of the local labor force and products.

I'm not saying the reasoning behind the change isn't valid - I feel it's just the wrong execution of the right idea.

Bill

~SDC~

My biggest complaint about the starbase costs is that it is on top of the construction costs for the Constructer. If it is going to be a monetary fortune to build a starbase - then constructers should be cheaper units to build.

I'm all for balancing out the cultural effects of starbases instead though. I have to turn off culture victory for games I play so starbases don't automatically overwhelm the enemy too quickly. How about starbases just have signficantly less cultural impact - viola you don't need to finacially penalize starbase construction.

~SDC~

With the limit on space between SB now enforced, this would limit the amount of influence even a fully populated sector of SB would exhibit, maybe not even enough to flip the sector color.

That was frogboy's point, that the worst starbase abuse is lots of bases with one or two modules. The idea here is to have fewer starbases, with more development on each.

I do like that this encourages us to be a little more concervative with our bases. I for example never built more than 1 defence module on any base that wasn't on a resource. I didn't care if a trade booster was destroyed -- the cost of 4 new constructors to replace it was less than the cost of the constructors it would take to up the defence suffeciently. That kind of cavalier attitude isn't what the devs had in mind for bases, I'm sure.
(edit- spelling)
[Message Edited]

What's this thing about
"To stop these structures form becoming too powerful, we will not allow any more construction on this starbase
The United Planetary Council"

No starbase-impeding UP laws were in effect.